‘sophistication-via-masochism’. The making a fetish, which by definition is illogical and unreasonable, of blaming the West.
Her discussion on Question Time went thus:
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:
The rules of war say, and Paddy [Lord Ashdown], I don’t know, can confirm or deny this, when people are killed in battle their bodies are given to families to bury, properly. This did not happen. He’s no friend of mine but they should have done that.
…If we say we are more civilized then we have to act. And it’s difficult. What do you think is going to happen now? People ‘A’ won’t believe he’s dead, ‘B’ and the lady’s completely right this wasn’t done according to proper rites. It will just set off another generation.
Douglas Murray:
….What Yasmin is doing… is holding America and our allies to such a uniquely high standard that no society could ever live up to it. That even the worst enemy of a society has to be buried according to the customs that they would want. I can’t raise it in me, Yasmin to think that whether or not the customs around his burial were perfect in your eyes is the most important thing in the Bin Laden story
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:
Then you are as barbaric as them… you’re no better.
For Alibhai-Brown it will be the outrage arising from outrageous outrages, such as giving Osama Bin Laden an Islamic burial at sea, which will ‘set off another generation’. Those potential jihadists who were previously on the fence about a life of terrorism will apparently be motivated to kill random civilians due to events such as this. And presumably, once again, this would all be our fault. It’s incredible the number of things we need to do to ensure we don’t make these perfectly reasonable people angry.
Her attempt to criticise U.S. actions as part of a ‘cycle of violence’ argument echos Corbyn’s comments. I shall discuss this later.
From Mark Bowden:
After much discussion and advice, it had been decided that the best option would be burial at sea. That way there would be no shrine for the martyr’s misguided followers. So the body was washed, photographed from every conceivable angle, and then flown on a V-22 Osprey to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson cruising in the North Arabian Sea.
As a formality, the State Department contacted Saudi Arabia’s government and offered to deliver the body to his home country, but bin Laden was as unwanted there in death as he had been in life. Told that the alternative was burial at sea, the Saudi official said, “We like your plan.”
Procedures for a simple Muslim burial were performed on the carrier. The body was wrapped in a white shroud with weights to sink it.
The last sequence of color photos in the death album were not grotesque. They were strangely moving. A navy photographer recorded the burial in full sunlight Monday morning, May 2. One frame shows the body wrapped in the weighted white shroud. The next shows it diagonal on a flat board, feet overboard. In the next frame the body is hitting the water with a small splash. In the next it is visible just below the surface, a ghostly torpedo descending. In the next shot there are only circular ripples on the blue surface. In the final frame the waters are calm. The mortal remains of Osama bin Laden were gone for good.
Bowden, Mark (2012-10-16). The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden (p. 264). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
You will recall that Alibhai-Brown, to her shame, said “Then you are as barbaric as them… you’re no better.” I ask you to consider the events and decisions described above and then choose whether these are the reasonable actions of a serious and civilised nation or more in keeping with the barbarism of Jihadist murderers?
Let us grant Alibhai-Brown the presumption that she knew nothing of the U.S. contact with the government of Bin Laden’s origin, the home to most of his remaining family, and that the U.S. had already correctly speculated what that government would say.